http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2005/1164Ten Thousand Voter Registration Documents May Have Been Shredded in Hocking County, Ohio
July 13, 2005
Members of the Progressive Ohio Backbone Campaign traveled to Hocking County on Monday morning, July 11, and filed criminal charges with the Hocking County Sheriff’s Department against the county’s Board of Elections (BOE) Director Lisa Schwartze.
Schwartze had previously admitted at the July 5 BOE meeting that she had used the office to promote a Republican Party fund-raiser last fall. The charges filed against Schwartze, however, do not to pertain to Schwartze’s use of the BOE office for partisan political fund-raising. Rather, the charges filed pertain to her alleged illegal shredding of election documents, the Free Press has learned.
Sherole Eaton, the fired Hocking County BOE deputy director and Congressional whistleblower, who swore an affidavit against a Triad company technician for allegedly offering a cheat sheet and replacing the county’s central voting tabulator hard drive during last year’s presidential recount, says that Schwartze may have destroyed up to “ten thousand documents.”
“I told her that she couldn’t shred and delete the changes of addresses that were coming in from registered voters during the election year, but she wouldn’t listen to me,” Eaton explained, “In order for Lisa to destroy those documents, she’s got to go to the Board of Elections, state officials, and then ask the Ohio Historical Society if they want them. And even then, she can only destroy them according to a public records retention schedule that requires they are kept for four years.”
Eaton says that all investigators would have to do is ask Schwartze for hard copies of the change of address forms to verify her allegations.
Eaton also claimed that she told BOE President Gerald Robinette of Schwartze’s action including her use of the office for Republican fund-raising purposes and the Democratic Board Chair said, “Let’s not go public with it. We can use it for blackmail purposes later.”
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